Thursday, December 31, 2009

HAVANA: Varadero, Cuba's most famous resort, welcomed 1 million tourists this year, a source from the Cuban tourism sector said Wednesday.

Velio Barrera, an expert on commercialization and communication at the Tourism Ministry in Varadero, said that 40 percent of the tourists visiting Cuba went to Varadero. Varadero is also known as the Blue Beach, and lies 140 km from Havana.

Barrera added that more than 86 percent of the hotel rooms in Varadero belong to the four- or five-star category, which together with the more than 20 km of beaches have made it one of the most popular tourist destinations in the Caribbean.

Besides, Varadero offers various services including restaurants, cafes, boats, an airport and shops.

In the 1950s, there were only 15 hotels and many hostels in Varadero. Now, Varadero has 48 hotels, and investments here continue to increase.

A half-century ago, on Jan. 1, 1959, Fidel Castro brought down the curtain on Fulgencio Batista's right-wing dictatorship in Cuba. As Mr. Castro planted himself firmly in the Communist camp and began to nationalize businesses and property and clamp down on dissent, an exodus began that eventually brought hundreds of thousands to the shores of the United States; Miami became Cuba's second city.

In the shadow of the 50th anniversary of the revolution, Cuba is a repressive society long under a single ruler -- the ailing, aged Mr. Castro still holds Cubans in his thrall even if he formally handed the presidency to his younger brother, Raúl, in July 2006 when he was taken sick with an undisclosed stomach ailment.

Through a labyrinth of rations, regulations, two currencies and four markets (peso, hard currency, agro and black), people make their way. Life for most Cubans is filled with injustices and indignities-a currency system that keeps many consumer goods mockingly out of reach; swank tourist hotels that few Cubans can afford (or until 2009 were even allowed to enter); recurring shortages of necessities like milk, eggs, beans and even toilet paper. Health care is free, but seeing a doctor can be a day-long ordeal that ends with a prescription for drugs that cannot be found, or a recommendation for surgery that cannot be performed. The creaky old American cars in Havana that rumble past the historic yacht Granma that Mr. Castro used to start his revolution underscore the static nature of life in Cuba.

For the last 50 years, a long line of American presidents-Republicans and Democrats alike-have tried to stare down Mr. Castro, without much success. He has proven to be a master of imagery, a complex strategist who managed to turn U.S. attempts against him and his country to his own advantage again and again. In the end, it appears that nature and human frailty may do what assassination attempts and a half-century-long embargo have failed to do-bring the Castro era to an end.Fidel Castro's Rise to Power

After seizing power, Mr. Castro promised to restore the Cuban constitution and hold elections. But he soon turned his back on those democratic ideals, embraced a totalitarian brand of communism and allied the island with the Soviet Union. He saw himself as Cuba's messiah, and he governed with an ideological fervor that bordered on self-destructive. He brought the world to the brink of nuclear war in the fall of 1962, when he allowed Russia to build missile launching sites just 90 miles off the American shores. He weathered an American-backed invasion at the Bay of Pigs and used Cuban troops to stir up revolutions in Africa and Latin America.

Declassified Pentagon documents indicate that in the 1980s, Mr. Castro pushed the Soviet Union to take a tougher stand against Ronald Reagan's military buildup, and urged the Soviet generals to seriously consider a nuclear strike on the United States, even if it meant catastrophe for Cuba. And after a pair of powerful hurricanes devastated large swathes of the island in 2008, leaving behind $10 billion in damage, the Castro regime refused to accept foreign assistance offered directly to the Cuban people. All aid had to go to the government, or it would be turned down.

Actions such as these have earned him the permanent enmity of Washington and led the United States to impose decades of economic sanctions that Mr. Castro and his followers maintain have crippled Cuba's economy and have kept their socialist experiment from succeeding completely. The sanctions also proved handy to Mr. Castro politically. He cast every problem Cuba faced as part of a larger struggle against the United States and blamed the abject poverty of the island on the "imperialists" to the north.

For good or ill, Fidel Castro was without a doubt the most important leader to emerge from Latin America since the wars of independence of the early 19th century, not only reshaping Cuban society but providing inspiration for leftists across Latin America and in other parts of the world. But he never broke the island's dependence on commodities like sugar, tobacco and nickel, nor did he succeed in industrializing the nation so that Cuba could compete in the world market with durable goods. Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of its aid to the island, Cuba has limped along economically, relying for hard currency mostly on tourism and money sent home from exiles..Raul Castro's Turn

Some experts have said that Raúl Castro is more pragmatic than his hot-tempered brother. Involved in the revolutionary struggle from the beginning, Raúl had run the armed forced efficiently for decades. But nothing about him was charismatic, and he did not command loyalty outside of the barracks.

Understanding that he needed to make concrete changes if he was to win a measure of support from the Cuban people, Raúl acted quickly after taking over as provisional president. He ordered a fleet of Chinese busses and put them on the streets of Havana, vastly improving daily life for thousands. He also agreed to allow Cubans to enter tourist hotels, and to buy DVDs and computers (even though one could cost several years salary).

He has given signals he might try to follow the Chinese example of state-sponsored capitalism. But his regime has made no significant changes. In March 2009, Mr. Castro announced a shake-up in his administration. That his brother was still calling shots was obvious after the 2009 purge that saw several top ranking officials, including two who had often been mentioned as possible successors, unceremoniously removed. By all account, their crime was ambition.

People say they have seen small improvements in the economy that do not go far enough. Many roads in Havana have been repaired. Microwave ovens, DVD players and cellphones are now in stores.

The nation still imports more than 80 percent of what it consumes, and Mr. Castro is trying to encourage farming by giving fallow land to those willing to work it. But the money they can earn selling the food remains below what is needed for the tools and labor needed to start a farm.

Three hurricanes in 2008 cost Cuba $10 billion, or 20 percent of the gross domestic product. Salaries remain low, food prices are high and housing is scarce. Bartenders, with access to dollars, earn wages many times that of physicians. Tourism was up in 2008 but the price of Cuba's top export, nickel, dropped by 41 percent.U.S.-Cuba Relations

Many Cubans are putting their hopes for the economy on President Barack Obama's easing of longstanding restrictions on family travel and remittances to Cuba, although the Cuban government charges hefty fees on such remittances.

Recently there have been other small signs of détente. Cuban and American officials have talked about resuming direct mail service, and the Obama administration has given American telecommunications firms the OK to provide cell phone services in Cuba. The Cuban regime has promised to make Internet service more available, though it still does not tolerate direct criticism, online or off.

In the meantime, as the American embargo continues, foreign companies are gradually increasing their presence in Cuba. Brazil, China and Russia have joined the search for oil in Cuban waters in the Gulf of Mexico. Spanish companies have always had a strong economic presence, and relations between the countries have grown stronger since Spain passed a law in 2008 that allows anyone with Spanish grandparents to become a Spanish citizen.

Instead of lifting the trade embargo with Cuba, enacted in the 1960s in an unsuccessful attempt to force a change in government after Fidel Castro came to power, Mr. Obama is using his executive power to repeal President George W. Bush's tight restrictions and the looser restrictions issued under President Bill Clinton so that Cuban-Americans can now visit Cuba as frequently as they like and send gifts and as much money as they want, as long as the recipients are not senior government or Communist Party officials.

In a sense, the policy shift is an admission that a half-century of American policy aimed at trying to push the Castros out of power has not worked -- as the Cuban American National Foundation, the most powerful lobbying group for Cuban exiles in Miami, conceded in April 2009. Cuba policy experts characterized Mr. Obama's moves as important humanitarian steps but said they still left open the broader question of how the United States and Cuba plan to engage in the future.

When President Obama came to office, the unflattering billboards of George W. Bush, including one outside the United States Interests Section of him scowling alongside Hitler, came down and the anti-American vitriol softened. Raúl Castro, who took over from his ailing brother Fidel in 2006, even raised the possibility of a face-to-face meeting with Mr. Obama, which would have been the first time one of the Castros met with a sitting American president.

But the tenor here has changed considerably, and Mr. Obama, whose election was broadly celebrated by Cuba's racially diverse population, is now being portrayed by this nation's leaders as an imperialistic, warmongering Cuba hater.

"As things appear now, there will be no big change in the relationship in the near future," said Ricardo Alarcón, the president of Cuba's National Assembly. He dismissed the Obama administration's recent steps, like loosening restrictions on Cuban Americans' traveling or sending money to the island and allowing American telecommunications companies to do business there, as "minor changes."

The two countries have postponed the talks they restarted at the beginning of the Obama administration to discuss migration, postal delivery and other issues, blaming each other for the delays. In the absence of talks, Mr. Obama's carrot-and-stick approach of relaxing some Bush-era policies while continuing to denounce the Castro government on human rights has failed to engage — and perhaps has enraged — the Cuban leadership.

While Raúl Castro repeated the offer to meet with Mr. Obama in a fiery speech recently, he also blasted the Obama administration for "undercover subversion" against Cuba and warned that his nation was ready for any American invasion. In one of his recent written commentaries in the state press, Fidel Castro, who has not appeared in public in nearly three years, wrote that Mr. Obama's "friendly smile and African-American face" masked his sinister intentions to control Latin America.

"It's unfortunate," Wayne S. Smith, a former American diplomat in Havana, said of the rising tensions. "There was and still is potential for the Obama administration to change relations with Cuba. These comments coming out of Havana don't help."

Mr. Obama is the 11th president from what the Cubans call "El Imperio," or "The Empire," that the Castros have jousted with since the revolution a half century ago. And given that the Cubans have used Washington as a foil for so long, some of the high-voltage criticism of Mr. Obama is chalked up by some Cuba analysts as merely Havana's normal stance when it comes to the United States. It is only a matter of time before the first anti-Obama billboard goes up, some experts speculate.

Mr. Alarcón, the National Assembly president, did give Mr. Obama credit for using language that is "more peaceful, and civilized and open" than his predecessor. But he said that it was clear to him that the White House was too distracted with other issues to make Cuba a priority.

Others in the Cuban government take matters further, maintaining that Mr. Obama, despite some initial steps toward rapprochement, has continued to follow the Bush administration's goal of toppling the Communist leadership. "In the last few weeks we have witnessed the stepping up of the new administration's efforts in this area," Raúl Castro told Cuba's National Assembly during its annual session on Dec. 19. "They are giving new breath to open and undercover subversion against Cuba."

He was referring to the detention this month of an American contractor distributing cellphones, laptops and satellite equipment in Cuba on behalf of the Obama administration. The Cubans have accused the contractor, whose identity has not been made public, of giving the equipment to civil society groups in Cuba without permission. For its part, the Obama administration complains that Raúl Castro is running the island exactly like his brother did, without fundamental freedoms and with continued abuses against political opponents. But Cuban officials say Washington's insistence on more democracy in Cuba continues an old pattern of meddling in their country's sovereign affairs.

"If the American government really wants to advance relations with Cuba, I recommend they leave behind the conditions of internal governance that they are trying to impose on us and that only Cubans can decide," Raúl Castro said in his assembly speech.

Cuba continues to press its own issues with the United States, arguing, for instance, that Mr. Obama ought to immediately pardon five Cuban agents, known on the island as the Cuban Five, who are serving long prison terms in the United States for gathering information about Cuban exile groups in south Florida.

Mr. Alarcón reiterated a proposal that Raúl Castro has made on more than one occasion: the exchange of political prisoners in Cuba for the five Cubans held in the United States

The Cubans also insist that the Obama administration extradite to Venezuela Luis Posada Carriles, an anti-Castro militant accused of helping to blow up a Cuban airliner in 1976, killing 73 people. Mr. Posada, who is living in Miami on bail, faces charges in federal court in Texas for making what the government says were false statements to immigration officials. An immigration judge has ruled that he cannot be sent to Venezuela, a close ally of Cuba, because he faces a high likelihood of torture there.

"With the previous administration, it didn't make sense to talk about anything," said Mr. Alarcón. "This administration came to office pledging to change and to improve relations. Obama has nothing to do with the past but he's finished his first year and so far nothing has happened with these issues."

Mr. Smith, now a Cuba analyst at the Center for International Policy who advocates a lifting of the American trade and travel bans on Cuba, was supposed to accompany Barry McCaffrey, a retired American Army general, on a trip to Havana from Jan. 3 to 6 to discuss how the two countries could cooperate on fighting drug trafficking. But General McCaffrey pulled out, incensed by recent criticisms of Mr. Obama by Cuban officials.

"This type of shallow and vitriolic 1960s public diplomacy also makes Cuban leadership appear to be nonserious, polemical amateurs," he said in a letter to Mr. Smith. "President Obama is the most thoughtful and nonideological U.S. chief executive that the Cubans have seen in 50 years."

At the same time, still hopeful that the two countries can put their grudges aside, Mr. Smith said the United States should continue efforts to improve relations by removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, for instance, and by closing Radio Martí and TV Martí, the anti-Castro broadcasts financed by the United States government and sent from American soil to Cuba.

Some Cuban exiles, however, argue that Mr. Obama has gone far enough and that it is Cuba's turn to make a meaningful gesture.

As Cubans end 51 years of living under the Castro brothers' rule, the regime continues to crack down on bloggers, artists, dissidents and others who dare question the communist dictatorship.

Sometimes it can seem that little will ever change. But it's clear that a new generation of Cubans raised on the government's anti-U.S. propaganda aren't buying it.

It's clear, too, that efforts in Congress to drop the U.S. travel ban on Cuba have stalled, and for good reason. Even those who have tried to work with Fidel and Raúl Castro to improve U.S.-Cuba relations are questioning the Cuban regime's true intentions.

The latest to do so is four-star retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, former White House drug czar and SouthCom commander who has called for lifting the travel ban. He cancelled a Jan. 3-6 trip to the island after Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Ródriguez went on the attack, calling President Obama an ``imperial and arrogant liar.''

The general noted that ``this type of shallow and vitriolic 1960's public diplomacy makes Cuban leadership appear to be non-serious, polemical amateurs. President Obama is the most thoughtful and non-ideological U.S. chief executive that the Cubans have seen in 50 years. . . . [Rodriguez's] speech probably slammed the window shut on U.S. congressional and administration leaders being willing to support bringing Cuba back into the community of nations.''

Gen. McCaffrey also pointed out that Raúl Castro ``mentioned Cuba's recent `war games' to prepare for U.S. invasion. What a laughable assertion of an external U.S. military threat.''

That old Castro script would be laughable, too, if it hadn't caused so much suffering on both sides of the Florida Straits. The general deserves praise for calling it like it is.

Cuban dance band Los Van Van will return to Miami in January for the first time since more than 3,500 protesters created havoc outside their Miami Arena show in 1999.

The band, which celebrated its 40th anniversary this month, will play the James L. Knight Center on Jan. 31. They will play another show Jan. 28 in Key West. Tickets for the Miami show are on sale at Ticketmaster.com.

Los Van Van was the first group in Cuba to use synthesizers and drum machines in its music, creating a new genre of music called ``songo'' -- soul, disco and go-go music fused with Cuban son. The group won a Grammy for best salsa performance in 1999.

When Los Van Van played Miami Arena later that year, thousands of Cuban exile protesters greeted concertgoers by spitting at them, yelling obscenities and throwing eggs, rocks and bottles. By night's end, more than 50 Miami police officers had donned riot gear, and five people had been arrested.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

January 1st, 2010 marks the fifty-first anniversary of the enslavement of the Cuban people by the totalitarian Marxist-Leninist tyranny of Fidel Castro, and in the last two years of a two-headed tyranny with the incorporation of General Raúl Castro as head of state. To review in detail the history of these fifty-one years is to revive terrible memories of what the suffering of the noble Cuban people has been with its execution walls, its prisons full of persecuted citizens, religious persecution and with the plundering of banks and privates homes in total violation of private property.

It is inconceivable, painfully inconceivable, that during the year that is about to end democratically elected rulers of the Western Hemisphere visited Havana to pay homage to the decrepit and ailing tyrant. Without any qualms whatsoever, these rulers, male and female alike, arrived to burn incense at the feet of the tyrant, taking their pictures with him and expressing their feelings of admiration, respect and solidarity, although not necessarily all of them might have used the same words. But, undoubtedly, these concepts are implied in this shameful behavior to pay homage to the one who is a determining factor, the only one, in the enslavement of a sister nation that has been oppressed by a fierce tyranny for more than half a century. These tributes included decorations or gestures of "political tenderness" as was the case of the now deposed President Zelaya who came to see Castro and placed the hat that he usually wears on the head of the tyrant as a sign of exceptional identification with him.

The attitude of these rulers implies their close ties with a regime that is cruelly anti-democratic, which is more than anti-democratic. And, nevertheless, they dare to challenge the will of the majority of the people of Honduras "disqualifying" the democratic and constitutional performance of the government that substituted Zelaya in compliance with the country's Constitution.

What the Cuban people have suffered is perhaps incalculable in many aspects. And to make things worse during this more than half-a-century prominent Cuban figures have died, thus no longer being able to offer verbal testimony – there are many in writing – of what their homeland has suffered.

* National output seen between 60,000 and 65,000 tonnes* Sherritt International venture operating at capacity* Industry still struggling to overcome hurricane damage

By Marc Frank

HAVANA, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Cuba's unrefined nickel plus cobalt production appears to have been between 60,000 and 65,000 tonnes this year, the lowest in a decade, according to scattered radio reports this week.

Cuba produced 70,400 tonnes of unrefined nickel and cobalt in 2008, after averaging between 74,000 and 75,000 tonnes during much of the decade.

While production at Canadian mining company Sherritt International's (S.TO) nickel venture in Cuba topped 37,000 tonnes, output at two plants owned by state-run Cubaniquel was well below capacity.

Cuba has not announced this year's nickel output, with officials simply stating it was less than the 70,000 tonnes planned.

The Caribbean island is one of the world's largest nickel producers and supplies 10 percent of the world's cobalt, according to the Basic Industry Ministry.

"The Pedro Soto Alba plant met this year's plan, producing more than 37,000 tonnes of nickel, and remains open," Jorge Cuevas Ramos, the first secretary of the Communist Party in Holguin, was quoted by national state-run Radio Rebelde on Wednesday as stating.

Radio stations based in Holguin, where the three plants are located, reported this week that production at the Cuba-owned Ernesto Che Guevara plant, with a capacity of 32,000 tonnes, did not meet it's 26,000-tonne plan.

There was no mention of output at the country's third and oldest plant, the Rene Ramos Latourt at Nicaro Holguin, which has a capacity of 10,000 to 15,000 tonnes and is also operated by Cubaniquel.

Scattered reports this year indicated Rene Ramos Latourt and the feed process to the plant were operating below capacity at various times, so there were most likely production problems there as well.

Hurricane Ike, a Category 3 storm, hit Cuba in September 2008 at Holguin's northern coast, where the nickel industry's three processing plants are located, damaging the two Cubaniquel plants, infrastructure, housing and buildings and swamping the area with torrential rains and a storm surge.

Nickel is essential in the production of stainless steel and other corrosion-resistant alloys. Cobalt is critical in production of super alloys used for such products as aircraft engines.

Cuban nickel is considered to be Class II, with an average 90 percent nickel content.

Cuba's National Minerals Resource Center reported that eastern Holguin province accounted for more than 30 percent of the world's known nickel reserves, with lesser reserves in other parts of the country. (Additional reporting by Nelson Acosta; Editing by Walter Bagley)

For years I have been reporting on how Fidel Castro has been crushing internal dissent. I did this while simultaneously trying to demythicize his comrade, Che Guevara, a charismatic man when he was not a merciless executioner at Havana prisons. I once met Guevara, and, during our exchange at a Cuban mission in New York, we did not agree on the value of free elections. As for Fidel's brother, Raul, he continues the family tradition of adding to the prison population of Cubans caught practicing discordant political speech.

Throughout the course of these columns on the Castro dictatorship, I have cited the chronic racial discrimination against black Cubans throughout Fidel's Revolution, a "revolution" that gladdens such visitors as celebrity documentarian Michael Moore, who never mentions Jim Crow on the island.

The extensive marginalization of blacks in Cuba has failed to break through into general American consciousness; but as of the Nov. 30 release of "Statement of Conscience by African-Americans" (miamiherald.com, Dec. 1), the big dirty secret of the Castro brothers has been exposed.

According to the resounding news release – which had the authoritative ring of Louis Armstrong's "West End Blues" – "60 prominent black American scholars, artists and professionals have condemned the Cuban regime's stepped-up harassment and apparent crackdown on the country's budding civil-rights movement. This statement is the first public condemnation of racial conditions in Cuba made by black Americans."

Trapped in Castro's gulag and lived to tell about it – check out Armando Valladares' story of 20 years under dictator's thumb: "Against All Hope"

Among the signers denouncing the "callous disregard" for the "most marginalized people on the island" are:

These protestors emphasize that "traditionally, African-Americans have sided with the Castro regime and condemned the United States' policies, which explicitly work to topple the Cuban government. Yet this landmark statement by prominent African-Americans condemns the growing persecution waged by the Cuban government against Afro-Cuban movements" in Cuba.

Tellingly, these tribunes of civil rights emphasize, among other sources, including Afro-Cubans: "The U.S. State Department estimates Afro-Cubans make up 62 percent of the Cuban population, with many informed observers saying the figure is closer to 70 percent.

"Afro-Cubans are experiencing strong and growing instances of racism on the island, with their 25-odd civil-rights movements reporting a wide range of discriminatory practices in hiring, promotion and access to Cuba's socialized medicine and educational system."

When you were filming your tribute to Fidel Castro's exemplary government-controlled health system, Mr. Moore, didn't you notice the paucity of black patients?

There's more from this statement of conscience, which has received little notice in the American press as of this writing. Surely what follows should be of interest to Americans of all colors:

"Young black Cubans bitterly complain of aggressive racial profiling conducted by police, and Cuba's jail population is estimated to be 85 percent black, according to black Cuban civil-rights activists." In addition, "70 percent of Afro-Cubans are said to be unemployed. In such conditions, a vigorous rebirth of Cuba's black movement, banned in the early years of the Cuban Revolution, is occurring. Cuban authorities are responding with violence and brutal civil-rights violations."

(Column continues below)

In a previous column, I reported on a visit to Havana months ago by members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Several enthusiastically lauded Fidel Castro's achievements in advancing the betterment of the Cuban people, but there was not a word about the pervasive racism.

In contrast, writing about this "Statement of Conscience" challenge to the Cuban government, Juan O. Tamayo (miamiherald.com, Dec. 1) noted that "more African-Americans traveling to Cuba have been able 'to see the situation for themselves,' said David Colvin, one of the statement's organizers and former president of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists."

And, in an incisive reminder to President Obama as he advocates improved U.S. relations with the Cuban government, Victoria Ruiz-Labrit, Miami spokesperson for the Cuba-based Citizens' Committee for Racial Integration, also reminds all of us that even those Americans working for human rights in Cuba have largely omitted the race issue. But, she adds, "Cuban blacks moved closer to the term 'civil rights,' because those are the rights that the movement here in the U.S. made a point of – the race issues."

The Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton – along with leaders in the NAACP and our other civil-rights organizations – will, I hope, soon book passage to Cuba to stand with Cuban civil-rights activists trying to get some of their members out of the Castros' prisons where they are held in cells with common criminals.

Next week: the prison hunger strike by Cuban civil-rights leader Dr. Darsi Ferrer, and more of the resistance to the dictatorship.

Nat Hentoff is a nationally renowned authority on the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights and author of many books, including "The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Resistance."

The short one, on the rightThe New York Times has a goo-goo story up about how Carlos Varela, "Cuba's Bob Dylan" (quick question: what does the world wrongly think it has more of, "fill-in-the-blank-country's Bob Dylan," or "the Silicon Valley of fill-in-the-blank country"?), who is currently in the U.S. trying, as the headline says, "to sway America's Cuba policy with song." Here is your requisite NYT-Cuba WTF paragraph:

His life has been marked by the highs and lows of the Cuban revolution. The government gave him a world-class education in music and theater, but refuses to broadcast many of his songs, which have veiled critiques of the Communist leadership.

Doot-en-doo-doo (1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3)This "world-class education" stuff I'll never understand. When you're talking particularly (though not only) about the humanities, whether music or literature or architecture, how can any education be "world class" if it is utterly and intentionally choked off from a thick chunk of the outside world? Is it technically possible to provide a world-class education in music while, for instance, banning the Beatles?

Being anti-communist means never having to say you're sorry about your tiesYou used to see the same kind of credulous nonesense written about the former East Bloc. What literate, well-educated, artsy people! (Never mind that many were pretty well educated, often better educated, before the Red Army began policing the borders.) But the joyless, restrictive dead-endism of communist thinking poisoned the humanities there as much as anything else. One of the first things that Czechoslovakia's post-commie Fine Arts Academy rector did was fire each and every one of the professors. A Czech classical music student I knew flunked out of one key oral exam by failing to properly answer the question: "What is music?" (The correct answer: Music is art that is experienced by the ears.) With whole swaths of music and literature banned, and expression/exchange frowned upon and criminalized, many artists and/or free-thinkers would aim to receive as technical an education as possible (for instance, in engineering, or the restoration of old buildings). In Cuba, I befriended an architect and former revolutionary who finally turned his back on Castro after the regime suddenly announced post-1989 that it could no longer afford to import Central European newspapers and journals. A revolutionary architecture that willfully cut itself off from the global conversation, he decided, was an architecture without foundation.

It should be intuitive that closed systems generally produce bad learning, with only occasional exceptions of results produced by grotesque over-emphasis (for instance, medicine in Cuba, and swimming in East Germany). But apparently it's not.

Varela's offical website here. I wrote about the island's crappy culture of information back in 2002. Contributing Editor Glenn Garvin wrote about "Castro's favorite propagandist" in 2007. And Michael Moynihan caught up recently with Cuban punk rocker Gorki Aguila for ReasonTV:

Finally, for connoiseurs of terrible music, here is Varela's pal Jackson Browne singing "Going down to Cuba," a song whose righteous lyrics about Americans' freedom of travel cannot begin to make up for the line "They make such continuous use of the verb to resolve."

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

About 70 percent of the equipment used by Cuba in its oil industry comes from Azerbaijan, and Havana is eager to obtain more of it, said Cuba's ambassador to that country.In an interview published Monday in the Azeri newspaper Trend, Marcelo Caballero Torres (fot) said Cuba is also interested in food and agricultural products and in expanding trade in communications and medicine.Havana and Baku established diplomatic relations in April 1992, but no ambassadors were named until 2007. Since then, a joint commission on cooperation has met twice and the two countries have signed agreements on energy, health, communications, agriculture, tourism, and sports.A third meeting is scheduled for early March in Havana.Still, "the exchange of trade between our countries is small, so more needs to be done in that direction," Caballero told Trend, without providing any figures."The most promising areas in our economic relations are tourism, oil and gas, communications, pharmacology, health care, education, sports and other areas," the ambassador said."In 2008, two Cuban medical delegations visited Baku to study the market and consider offering [Cuban] biotechnology services and products" to Azerbaijan, he said. "Previously, there had been an intensive exchange of information on health systems. Were there any specific results? Unfortunately, none to this date."Azerflag Caballero restated his government's support for Azerbaijan's territorial integrity and said that Cuba "calls for the immediate return of territories occupied by Armenia, and a speedy, peaceful resolution of the Karabakh problem."Thousands of people died in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict that erupted after the mountainous region in the southern Caucasus declared independence in 1991. The region has been under Armenian control since a Russian-brokered ceasefire in 1994, but Azerbaijan has never ruled out military action to regain the land. (ILLUSTRATION SHOWS the Azeri flag.)–Renato Pérez Pizarro.

HAVANA TIMES, Dec. 29 - A group of Cuban intellectuals and civil society initiatives questioned the "increase of the bureaucratic-authoritarian control and obstruction of social initiatives" in a letter released in the island's capital, reported IPS. The letter said they were in favour of a socialism "that socializes - shares - all its resources, where we all have equal access to the exercise of power," contrary to another that "is the power of a bureaucracy against the rest of society."

HAVANA -- Cuba's official media lashed out at all four main candidates to become Florida's next senator - Democrats and Republicans alike - saying Tuesday they will do nothing to improve relations between Havana and Washington.

Republicans Marco Rubio and Charlie Crist and Democrats Kendrick Meek and Maurice Ferre all have voiced support for continuing Washington's 47-year trade embargo on the island, according to an article Tuesday in the Communist Party newspaper Granma.

The paper called them part of a "Miami mafia machine that dominates the city and North American policies toward Cuba."

Rubio, the son of Cuban parents, is a conservative former Florida House speaker who is challenging Gov. Crist for the Republican nomination.

Meek is a Democratic Congressman, and Ferre is a former mayor of Miami.

Each candidate addressed the hardline US-Cuba Democracy Political Action Committee (PAC) last week, arguing why he would be the best to fight for democracy in Cuba.

Florida is home to hundreds of thousands of Cuban exiles who have left the communist-run island since Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution. US-Cuba policies are one of the main issues that dominate the state's politics.

While many Cuban-Americans favor a hardline approach to the island, polls indicate a growing number support efforts to improve relations.

The general election will be held in November 2010.

The candidates are seeking to replace retiring Republican Mel Martinez, a Cuban-American who is also a strong proponent of the embargo.

A little more than 50,000 Cubans, a modest number, were working two jobs last October and November, pursuant to the Council of State's Decree Law 268 of 2009, which relaxes the country's labour system and makes it legal to take on an additional job.

Jose Barreiro, deputy minister of Labour and Social Security (MTSS), reported in a press conference that six months after the enactment of 268, nearly 97 per cent of the people working an additional job do so in service activities, primarily in the field of education.

In Cuba more than a few payrolls are still bloated, which is why this relaxation to allow plural employment will be shaped by this situation. Moreover, it is only a supplementary option. It will not be a magic wand if the payment system is not redesigned to promote productivity, quality, and efficiency.

It is well known that results-based payment, promoted by the MTSS, has met resistance and more than a few obstacles in the country.

Even so, Decree Law 268 is an instrument that if used correctly may ensure the production and services of sectors that are still facing a shortage of labour, such as agriculture. During specific periods of harvest and preparation, this sector could benefit from the contribution of more workers, who in turn will see their earnings increase.

First and foremost, agencies must manage the labour force efficiently and rationally. Plural employment must not become the means to which we resort to cover up waste and inefficiency.

According to reports, the number of students working more than one job is insignificant, even though Decree Law 268 makes it legal to employ young men and women in higher and advanced secondary education courses for a determined period of time.

The initiative is in the early going, and coordination is still needed among labour leaders, territorial institutions and companies, the FEU [Federation of University Students], and the FEEM [Federation of Secondary School Students] to facilitate the hiring process.

Nevertheless, the decree establishes that students at these levels may be hired to perform any activity or duty, provided that they meet the necessary qualifications and skill requirements. They shall be compensated commensurate with performance and granted all the rights of labour and social security legislation. Student shifts shall be agreed upon with the respective managers, provided that they do not affect or limit their academic performances.

During journalist questions, Jose Barreiro underscored that Decree Law 268 is only an instrument for relaxing the system. It alone cannot solve the problems of labour efficiency in Cuba. He acknowledged that much more must be done, with different instruments, to reinforce work as the only source of wealth in the country.

KUWAIT: Cuba plans to renew its previous bilateral agreement with Kuwait, especially in the field of medical cooperation, once the country's new envoy secures a formal meeting with Kuwait's Minister of Health(MoH). Manuel Pardinas Ajeno, the new Cuban Ambassador to Kuwait was speaking to the Kuwait Times yesterday to announce the country's National Day celebrations that will be observed on Jan 1.

The day is commemorated in Cuba as the victory garnered by the triumphant armed revolution against the US-backed dictator in 1959. "Our pharmaceutical industries are booming now than ever before. We have the technical knowhow, we have the best medical universities that educate and train our doctors and nurses. So, I would suggest, when I have the opportunity to meet with the Kuwaiti minister, that our proposal to revive our medical agreements be accepted just like before," he said.

Before 1990, Kuwait used to employ Cuban nurses in some government hospitals, but the practice ceased to exist since, he added. The Cuban envoy mentioned, "It is similar to that of the agreement renewed with Qatar at this point in time. But now, instead of nurses there are Cuban doctors. This is because we have the best doctors who have studied in our best medical universities. I think, our doctors can serve here if we can have sign same cooperation agreements with Kuwait," he reiterated.

He also invited Kuwaiti students to receive education at huge college campuses and acquire proper training and education in the field of medicine. "We have huge campuses for doctors to educate or train medical students, our campus is gradually being recognized worldwide," he added.

He emphasized the breakthrough in building several pharmaceutical companies in Cuba which, he mentioned, has gradually gained popularity in many countries. "Our pharmaceutical industries are booming, thanks to genetic engineering and biotechnology. We are extending our solidarity and support to every country that needs our help. We have people to assist developing countries especially in health and medical issues, especially with our neighboring countries. In return, we are also getting something, like inVenezuela, we are given special prices in return for their oil," he said.

Ambassador Ajeno also mentioned that three important bilateral agreements were signed with Kuwait last month. "On November last month, Cuba and the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development signed three agreements to revive our water supply systems and water treatment plants. Projects have already commenced in Santiago de Cuba and Holguin province," he disclosed.

Ajeno also lauded its political relations with Kuwait, placing it on the highest level. "Generally our bilateral relations in all fields are excellent and solid. The promotion and bilateral agreements which we signed with Kuwait recently will further strengthen our bilateral ties," he said. Next year, according to Ajeno, Cuba will be working hard to improve the country's infrastructure, especially in the development of sea ports and airports to facilitate Cuba's economic activities and prosperity. The country also wants to develop its oil industry, mining and agriculture sector to ensure food requirements for Cuban people.

When asked about the recent developments in Cuba with current President Raul Castro taking over the reins from Fidel Castro, Ajeno pointed out that no changes have taken place in terms of policy on both domestic and foreign issues. "They are biological brothers so no policy change has been implemented. But Raul Castro, our President, has been doing a great deal of work for our country and for Cubans in general. The good thing about Cuba is that a majority of our people support our government; that is because the government is moving on the right track," he emphasized.

Commenting US President Barack Obama's leadership and the policies he has adopted in relation to Cuba, Ajeno said that their(US) central government's has taken a 'wait and see' approach. "We are ready to discuss issues with them," but he admitted that he was still pessimistic. "Honestly I don't see any changes in the US policy towards us, but we are sovereign country just like the United States, so we want to deal with them as one country with a representative in the United Nations. We are hoping, but not so much," he said.

He also mentioned that according to the recent resolution passed by the United Nations, 187 out of 192 countries voted in favor of removal of US sanctions on Cuba. "But United States is a powerful country, so what we can do but 'wait and see'. They possess the veto power in the United Nations, so we'll see," he said.The Cuban revolution was an armed revolt that led to the overthrow of US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista of Cuba on January 1, 1959 by the 26th of July Movement led by Fidel Castro. The Cuban revolution also refers to the successful and ongoing implementation of social and economic programs by the new government.

A song, both humorous and poignant, about Cuban migrants has become one of the most popular hits on the communist island, illustrating a change in the attitude of locals towards those who decide to leave. The song Gozando en La Habana, which can be translated as "enjoying myself in Havana," by David Calzado and his Charanga Habanera is about a young girl who goes off to Miami. But once there, she calls her boyfriend in Cuba to talk about how much she misses her country. "She says she has money, the car shealways dreamed of, but she cannot find in Miami what she left in Havana," the song goes. The abandoned boyfriend then teases the girl: "You're crying in Miami and I'm enjoying myself in Havana.

For months, Gozando en La Habana has been the most listened to and danced to song in Cuba. Circulated widely on CDs, tapes and even pen drives, it can be heard on Cuba's state radio and television even though it touches on a thorny issue. It is rare to find a young person who doesn't know all the words. "We have managed to create a phenomenon and it is becoming an anthem of Cuban youth," Calzado told dpa. He said the song became such a huge hit because many Cubans can identify with the story.

For Calzado, there are no political connotations. But he admits that the song mentions Miami, rather than Paris or Madrid, because it is a stronghold for Cuban exiles. In the 50-year history since the revolution led by Fidel Castro in Cuba, tens of thousands of migrants have settled in the US city after managing to leave the island for political or economic reasons.

Until recently, Cuban authorities considered those exiles as the worst criminals, enemies of the state and imperialists. "Gusanos", or worms, was a common insult used to refer to them. But Havana's outlook on migrants has changed. Legislation has become more flexible, and Cubans who work abroad and send money to their families back home are now an important economic factor for the island. Some studies consider those remittances as Cuba's top source of foreign currency, even above tourism. "Why do you cry,if it is thanks to you that I was able to buy my computer," the boy in the song tells his girlfriend in Spanish.

Still, Cuban legislation continues to discourage leaving. Even for short trips, Cubans need an exit permit, including a letter of invitation from their foreign host. The entire process costs more than $300, which is a massive burden for Cubans who on average earn less than $20 a month. The exit permit is usually granted if the time-consuming paperwork is completed and the relevant fees are paid. Cuban authorities now allow entire families to leave at one time, something they would reject in the past.

There has been a sea change in migration from Cuba. The country has come a long way from past mass waves of emigrants - the last of them in Sept 1994. At that time, Cuba was facing extreme hardship, which included protests against the government in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet bloc that was Cuba's main trade partner.

Castro allowed those who were "most upset" to go, and for an entire month the coast guard remained passive as 30,000 Cubans went out to sea in makeshift vessels, in the hope of reaching Florida. It was the crisis of the "balseros", those who went to sea in a "balsa" or raft.

The United States grants refugee status to any Cuban who arrives on its territory, as long as they make it to shore. If the person is intercepted by the US Coast Guard, he or she is sent back to Cuba, in line with the so-called "wet foot, dry foot policy". The law was left unchanged in the wake of the events of 1994, which claimed many lives. But Washington agreed to grant up to 20,000 visas per year - compared to 5,000 per year until then - to Cubans, to promote more orderly migration. Most of those visasare given out in a lottery.

Nowadays, Cubans who leave the island in precarious boats are an exception, although there are still some cases. Calzado insists that he is not "a blind man who says everything is fine". But he claims that he never thought of leaving - not even in 1997, when he got into trouble with the authorities after his band flew over the audience in a helicopter during a concert. "We were banned for six months, because (the authorities) understood that was ostentation. Not even at that time, when it looked like theywere going to ban the Charanga forever, did I think about leaving," he says of his band.

Calzado notes that, in his travels, he has not found perfection in advanced countries either. "In the most developed countries, where you have one thing, you lack another. In the face of imperfections, I'd rather stay in my home environment, where I feel that the atmosphere is just what I need," he says. - dpa

The Cubans were being held at the INM detention centre in Queretaro, a city located northwest of Mexico City.

An international alert has been declared 'to achieve the quick recovery of the Cuban citizens', the INM said, adding that the escape was 'an isolated incident'.

The immigration service said it would 'not tolerate corruption inside the institution'.

This was not the first escape by Cubans this year from an INM facility.

Eight Cubans got out of the INM detention centre in the southern city of Chetumal in August, but six of them were later recaptured.

A group of suspected people traffickers intercepted a bus carrying 33 Cubans under INM custody in 2008.

Some of the Cubans turned up several weeks later in Texas.

Cubans enter Mexico illegally in an effort to make their way to the US.

Mexico and Cuba signed an immigration agreement in October 2008 aimed at guaranteeing a legal, orderly and safe migration flow.

The pact calls for Havana to take back all illegal Cuban immigrants detained by Mexican authorities.

Previously, the island's government took back illegal emigrants detained on the high seas, but it refused to accept Cubans detained on Mexican soil while en route to the US.

Under Washington's 'wet foot, dry foot' policy, Cubans who reach US soil are permitted to remain and become legal residents, while the vast majority of those intercepted at sea are sent back to the island.

Havana says the US policy encourages Cubans to undertake risky voyages to Florida and, in recent years, to Mexico's Caribbean coast.

Young dancers perform in Cuba in the new yearArts & EntertainmentDec 25, 2009

Dundas and Ancaster dancers will be among the first Canadians to perform in Havana's Gran Teatro.

After a successful performance of The Nutcracker ballet in Hamilton, seven youth from Dundas and Ancaster will head to Havana, Cuba, next month to resume their roles.

The group will join 34 other youth from the Canadian Ballet Youth Ensemble in Havana, Jan. 4-11, 2010.

Together, the troupe will have the rare opportunity to be the first Canadians to dance in Cuba's illustrious Gran Teatro – home to the National Ballet of Cuba. There, Canadian children will perform The Nutcracker alongside novices like themselves and elite-level dancers from the world-class Cuban national ballet.

As well as the performance, the dancers will take part in classes and rehearsals under the artistic direction of Cuba's legendary prima ballerina assoluta Alicia Alonso.

Meanwhile, back at home auditions are underway for Canadian Ballet Youth Ensemble's upcoming production of Hansel and Gretel Feb. 26, 2010. Roles are open to male and female dancers and gymnasts ages seven to 18. For details on how to audition for Hansel and Gretel contact info@cbye.ca or 905-512-1453.

To learn more about the Canadian and Cuban ballet connection, visit www.cbye.ca

Leaders of the First Unitarian Church of Portland are awaiting word from church members who were detained briefly in Havana over the weekend before being sent to Mexico.

Nine members of the church group were held at the Havana airport Saturday, while five other members were sent back to Cancun, Mexico. By Sunday, all of the church group's members were in Mexico.

Kate Lore, the social justice minister with the First Unitarian Church, said she and other church leaders are waiting to hear from the group. All of the members are safe and in good health, chuch leaders said.

"Now we are just waiting," Lore said, adding that she sent the group an email but has not heard back from them. She said their return to Oregon may be delayed since they will be boarding a last-minute flight and they want to wait for their bags to arrive from Havana.

Get caught spreading pro-democracy materials or even humanitarian aid in Cuba and chances are you'll sample the Castros' hospitality behind bars.

The communist island dictatorship that employs one of the most aggressive intelligence networks in the world remains committed against even the lowest level of outside interference -- and is as paranoid as ever.

"If you work for a human rights organization, it's naive to think they don't know who you are," says one expert on Havana's autocracy.

Earlier this month Cuban authorities arrested an American subcontractor for a Maryland economic development firm. Reportedly he was distributing cell phones and laptops in Cuba. President Raul Castro insists the American was supplying opposition groups with satellite communication equipment and accuses the Obama administration of maintaining hostile policies.

Although Raul says he's open to a "respectful dialogue" with the U.S., bitter brother Fidel remains ever critical of the Obama administration.

So much for Washington "recasting" its relationship with Cuba, in part by attempting to soften a 47-year trade embargo. For all its ill-advised efforts the U.S. has done nothing to change a narrow mind-set whose priority remains iron-fisted control.

Nothing will change in Cuba until the brothers Castro are relegated to history's dustbin of despots.

Cuba and China signed a contract for supplies to develop an irrigation system in Caujeri valley, by means of which they will rescue the potential productive capacity of that area in Guantanamo province. At a cost of around $1.1 million, this project will allow restoring the irrigation and drainage infrastructure, and establishing an organization to operate it efficiently.

Ambasador Carlos Miguel Perera called the agreement and its execution really valuable, according to the priority that Cuba gives to agriculture, especially food production as part of the strategy to reduce imports and mitigate the effects of the international crisis.

He recalled that this has been an important year to relations, despite the mentioned crisis, while the new project shows the continuity of those relations and their expansion.

The supply includes trucks, tractors, trailers, retro excavators, and different kinds of valves.

The initiative will be executed, using part of a donation granted in 2007, and will favor vegetable, grain, and fruit production.

Chinese Liaoning Zhongyi International Economic and Technical Cooperation Co. Ltd is in charge of the new project, which expresses the good bilateral collaboration relations.

The document was signed by Chen Lan Xia, director of the company's representative office to Havana, and Nancy Cruz, of the Donation Executing Company, on the Cuban side.

Other representatives of that Chinese company and the Cuban diplomatic mission to China also attended the ceremony.

Group Of 9 Detained At Cuban AirportChurch Members Sent Back To MexicoUPDATED: 8:29 am PST December 28, 2009

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Nine people from a Portland church group hoping to perform humanitarian work in Cuba were detained overnight at an airport in Havana this weekend.

Rev. Kate Lore of the downtown Portland-based First Unitarian Church first received word of the incident Saturday night.

Sixteen people from the church headed from Portland to Cancun, Mexico on Friday. They then departed Mexico and arrived at the airport in Cuba, but five were immediately sent back to Cancun. The other nine were detained at the airport in Havana for hours.

"It was a scary situation for our members because the Cuban authorities weren't forthcoming with the reasons they were detained," Lore said. "(They were) forced to sleep on the floor. We had elderly people there."

Several hours passed before the detainees were allowed to contact their church. Lore received an e-mail that said the group was being "held as prisoners."

"They didn't know what was going to happen to them," Lore said.

The group was allowed to leave Cuba on Sunday. It appeared a mix-up with their paperwork led authorities to believe the group was traveling as tourists. It is unlawful for Americans to travel to Cuba without obtaining a special license and tourist travel is not licensable, according to the U.S. Department of State.

The First Unitarian Church holds a religious activities license providing legal travel and has made several trips to Cuba for humanitarian work, bringing medicine and helping the country's AIDS patients. Members of the church have also performed as a choir and their Web site said the church aims to keep the struggles of the Cuban people on the radar screen for Americans.

Lore said the incident won't deter church members from returning to Cuba.

"This was a paperwork glitch and we will remedy it in the future," she said.

Cuban authorities send Portland church group back to MexicoBy Rick Bella, The OregonianDecember 27, 2009, 9:31AM

A humanitarian aid group from the First Unitarian Church of Portland was allowed to leave the Havana airport today, after being detained by Cuban authorities.

Nine members of the group were held in the airport overnight for unexplained reasons while five others were sent back Saturday to Cancun, Mexico, where their flight to Cuba originated.

The Rev. Kate Lore, the church's social justice minister, said all members of the group are safe and sound.

"I am so happy to hear they are doing well," Lore said. "I am breathing a big sigh of relief."

After leaving Portland late Friday night, the nine people detained by authorities slept on the floor at the Havana airport.

With few exceptions, U.S. citizens are banned from visiting Cuba. However, the group, Cuba AyUUda, holds a special religious activities license that allows legal travel to Cuba for those affiliated with First Unitarian Church.

Carol Rossio, a church member, said members on the trip said Cuban authorities said their religious activities license did not match their tourist visas.

"They said that never bothered the Cuban authorities before," Rossio said. "They didn't understand why that was a problem now."

Rossio said e-mails from detainees indicated that Cuban authorities appeared to be expecting them and intercepted them as soon as they landed. Some of those detained were in their late 70s, and found it uncomfortable to sleep on the airport's cold concrete floor. She said some Cubans not affiliated with the government offered help and tried to make detainees comfortable.

"I'm glad they're safe and sound now," Rossio said.

Rossio went on the church's first trip to Cuba in 2003, with the choir. Since then, a group has gone at least twice a year for projects such as painting buildings, helping people in nursing homes and transporting medical supplies and clothing.

She said the trips began after church choir director Mark Slegers met a Cuban choir director who invited the choir to sing in Cuba.

The purpose of Cuba AyUUda's trips, the church Website says, is to share Unitarian Universalism, foster citizen diplomacy, create and maintain friendships, bring much-needed supplies to Cubans and maintain awareness among Americans of the struggles of the Cuban people face.

Lore said the 14-member group was bringing medical supplies and planned to paint a health clinic.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

HAVANA Christmas in Cuba was awash with hard-to-get presents like flat-screen TVs and expensive candies as a wave of US-based Cubans visited for family reunions only made possible by a recent scrapping of US travel restrictions.

Adrian, one 17-year-old who flew in from the US state of Florida, where he was born to Cuban immigrants, was overjoyed as he threw his bags into a relative's classic orange 1956 Chevrolet at Havana's airport. He was seeing his grandfather for the first time.

"My parents emigrated 20 years ago and I'm so happy to be able to come and get to know my relatives," he said, grinning.

Next to him, the grandfather, a 60-year-old truck driver named Evaristo Delgado, was likewise exuberant, though he slammed "the politics that separate the Cubans here from those over there."

"Over there" mostly means Florida, the closest point in the United States to the communist island state that Washington has targeted with an economic embargo dating back five decades, in reaction to the revolution led by Fidel Castro.

Former US president George W. Bush toughened the embargo by allowing US-Cuba ns to make only one trip every three years.

In April of this year, though, US President Barack Obama relaxed the restrictions slightly, by giving Cuban-Americans the right to freely travel to Cuba. Non -Cuban-Americans, however, remain barred from doing so.

The change has meant that over this Christmas season, up to 10 flights a day were arriving from Miami in Havana, each of them filled with US Cubans weighed down with gifts.

Jose Rodriguez, a 50-year-old mechanic standing at the airport with a bouquet of flowers in his hand, was waiting for one of those flights which was carrying his 28-year-old niece. The last time he saw her was three years ago.

"Cuban families have to be able to come together. The restrictions don't make any sense, nor does the embargo," he said. "The people shouldn't carry the blame of their governments."

His niece, Nora Rodriguez, arrived and greeted her relatives with a flurry of hugs and kisses and happy tears. She moved to Miami 17 years ago.

Her glee, though, was tempered a little by the exorbitant price she had to p ay to for the one-hour flight covering a mere 140km.

"I haven't seen them for three years. They are my life. I love Cuba, and I miss it, but you end up broke coming here. I paid $600 for the plane ticket and $300 there for excess baggage and another $126 for the excess here," she complained.

Another US-based Cuban, Yaimelis, 37, said she arrived with her husband and their two children from North Carolina to share a typical Cuban Christmas with her family in Havana. "I came two months ago and now I'm back. Now we can travel when we want and we save up for it. It's ridiculous to be split up because of politics. So many people drown at sea trying to join family members who have left," she said.

She explained that she left Cuba with her parents in 1980, when 125,000 others departed for the United States during a brief permission given by Castro's government.

Yaimelis said she hoped Obama would ease more of the restrictions, and that the government of President Raul Castro, Fidel's brother, would lift barriers to Cubans travelling abroad.

Venezuela and Cuba to Form Joint Venture to Exploit Mature Fields27 December 2009

Following the Tenth Meeting of the Intergovernmental Commission of Integral Cooperation Agreement Cuba-Venezuela, held in Havana, Cuba earlier this month, delegations from both countries signed a memorandum of understanding to the establishment of a joint venture aimed at the primary activities in the hydrocarbons within the enclosed area of mature fields.

According to the signed document, these activities may be implemented in accordance with the terms and conditions set forth in the Agreement of the National Assembly, the National Executive Power decree authorizing the creation of the Joint Venture and the decree which transfers to the Joint Venture the right to exercise the primary activity in this area, as specified by the legal regime of oil in Venezuela.

Similarly, the Intergovernmental Commission authorized the change of name and purpose of the joint venture established in Cuba PDVCUPET S,A in April 2006 between Commercial Cupet, S,A, and PDVSA Cuba S,A. Henceforth the company will be named CUVENPETROL, S,A. and shall pursue the development and operation of the system of petroleum refining, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and compressed natural gas in the Republic of Cuba.

The operation of Cuvenpetrol S,A also includes the development in the Republic of Cuba expansion projects Refinery "Camilo Cienfuegos", design development and construction of facilities for the regasification plant of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), construction of a new refinery in Matanzas and expansion of the refinery Hermanos Diaz.

285 projectsVenezuela's delegation was chaired by Vice President and Minister of Popular Power for Energy and Petroleum Rafael Ramirez, and the delegation of Cuba by Ricardo Cabrisas Ruiz, vice president of the Council of Ministers.

The Tenth Meeting of the Intergovernmental Commission hill with the approval of a portfolio of 285 projects to implement in 2010, valued at 3 thousand 161 million 66 thousand 387 U.S. dollars.

The closing ceremony of this event was attended by the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, and President of the Councils of State and Ministers of Cuba, Army General Raúl Castro Ruz.

The delegations agreed that the adoption of these agreements and the agreed cooperation program, are an important contribution to increasing industrial complementation and integration of the economies of both countries under the principles of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America and the Treaty of Commerce of the People (ALBA-TCP).

The coordinating body of the Convention, the Ministry of Popular Power for Energy and Petroleum of Venezuela, and the Ministry for Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment in Cuba, agreed to hold quarterly meetings to review the status of implementation of agreed programs.

The Eleventh Meeting of the Intergovernmental Commission will be held in Caracas, Venezuela, in the second half of 2010.

Twelve years ago today -- because of holiday deadlines I'm writing on Tuesday, Dec. 22 -- I wrote a Christmas story of sorts. The story was about how, for the first time since 1969, the Cuban government had announced that Christmas was back, in preparation for the visit of Pope John Paul II to the island in mid-January of the following year, 1998.

``Here is this old, frail man, the leader of the church, who is going through the trouble of going to their country, visiting with them, listening to their troubles, that has to mean something to them,'' said José ``Pepe'' Prince, a sociologist from Queens who left Cuba in 1963 and had signed up to join the New York group that planned to travel to the island for the Pope's visit. ``I think this trip will be of psychological and symbolic importance. And I don't want to miss the opportunity to witness that.''

Some of the people mentioned in that story of jubilation and hope have since died, including Prince and the Pope himself -- now on the throes of becoming sanctified by the Roman Catholic Church -- but the Castro brothers, of course, are still alive and very much in charge. Cubans are indeed free to celebrate Christmas, to go to church, read religious publications -- there are about 40 circulating on the island now, I'm told -- and even to listen to religious leaders in the government-controlled media.

But beyond that, what has changed?

When the Pope gave his first Mass in Cuba on Jan. 22 in Santa Clara, I stood in the back of the barren field where several hundred people had congregated to listen to his words. The audience was subdued and a woman approached me to ask me if I knew who was selling oranges and for how much. She had heard a rumor and was hunting for food while the Pope from the pulpit criticized divorce and birth control.

The Cuban people still lack food, housing, and, oh yes, freedom. The new big idea of the government to face its economic woes is to go back to the bag of tricks from the past: five-year plans. Planificación -- planning -- and proyección -- projections -- are again buzz words. The United States is still the enemy. The embargo is still the culprit of all (``The situation is worse given the unjust and counterproductive U.S. embargo against Cuba, despite the initial hopes of change after Barack Obama became president,'' concluded an editorial in Spain's El País on Tuesday). And a couple of government thugs can still force two people into an unmarked car and proceed to beat them up in the back seat in the middle of Havana.

Yes, members of the clergy are allowed to visit prisoners and say Mass. But there are still political prisoners in Cuba's jails. Yes, the church is helping to feed people and contributes to the cultural and social fabric of the country through a variety of programs that include exercises, help to the elderly and even, in a modest scale, education. Yes, members of the clergy are allowed to organize and join religious processions, and to hold conferences and congresses, but it is all controlled and subdued by the ever watchful government. It's like the relationship between a parent and a toddler: you can walk alone, but don't run, and even worse, don't dare cross the street or even get close to the curbside.

Yet, María Cristina Herrera, a retired college professor who keeps close ties with the Cuban church and follows the intricacies of its triumphs and disappointments from her home in Coral Gables, remains convinced that ``Cuba has not been the same since the Pope's visit.''

``The church has left the walls of the temple and has placed itself squarely with the people,'' Herrera said. ``But not enough, not in the way I know they would want to.''

The danger with such accommodation, Herrera said, is that the church may compromise too much and back the government when it shouldn't in order to keep the small space it's managed to carve out in the dozen years since the Pope urged Cuba to open up to the world and urged the world to open up to Cuba.

Curiously, both things have happened. Most people -- except those in the United States -- have unrestricted access to Cuba as long as they can pay a plane ticket. And the world -- again with the exception of the United States -- has remained open and receptive to Cuba. And yet, it hasn't been enough. Because in addition to some sort of breathing space, a certain freedom to dissent, and a more liberal emigration policy, the Cuban people need the legal and civic structures, common to all functioning democracies, that would buffer and protect them against the state. El derecho al pataleo, the right to complain, is not enough when the individual has no one to turn to. It's like the proverbial tree falling in a remote forest.

Many more trees would have to fall before the world notices the island has been decimated.

As a senator from Florida, the gateway to Latin America, it is incumbent upon me to focus on U.S. policy as it relates to the Western Hemisphere. U.S. foreign policy in the hemisphere stands at a critical juncture. Our actions in the region signal to all countries where we stand on our commitment to respecting democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

Our policy in Latin America cannot be transactional. We must insist on human rights and other democratic institutions, including the rule of law. Fortifying democratic institutions and pursuing respect for human rights is the cornerstone of United States' foreign policy in Latin America.

Because of these concerns I placed a hold on the nomination of Tom Shannon. This allowed more time for me to evaluate Shannon's record and to ask specific questions of Shannon and State Department officials.

U.S. must be resolute

Two countries that represent the direction of the foreign-policy commitments of the United States are Honduras and Cuba -- Honduras, having just emerged from a constitutional process that resulted in the removal of its president and elections, and Cuba, where a dictatorial regime continues to oppress its people and violate their most basic human rights. In these two areas, the United States must be resolute -- demonstrating through action our insistence on democracy and respect for the rule of law.

During this process I have discussed my concerns for the region with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. I am grateful for her appreciation of the unique responsibility I have to the region as a senator from Florida. I am confident Clinton shares my concern about a reverse of the progress of democracy and the rise of authoritarian strongmen in Latin America.

I have received sufficient commitments from her that the administration's policy in Latin America, and specifically in Honduras and Cuba, will take a course that promotes democratic ideals and goals.

As a result of these discussions with the secretary and other State Department officials, I am pleased to report several concrete examples of this commitment.

Making progress

In Honduras, the United States will continue to normalize relations with that country's government and President-elect Porfirio Lobo. Counternarcotics cooperation will resume, and visa procedures will be normalized.

In Cuba, the United States will reopen the process for nonprofit organizations to apply for pro-democracy grants and renew the practice of including members of the Cuban pro-democracy movement in events at the U.S. Interests Section, Title IV of the Helms-Burton Act will be enforced and Cuba Democracy Assistance grants will be awarded in a fair and transparent manner. The State Department has memorialized these commitments in the form of a letter reviewed and approved by Clinton.

Ensuring our neighbors in the hemisphere recognize our commitment to democracy, human rights and the rule of law is fundamental. Leaders in nations that seek to destabilize the region are paying close attention to the way in which we carry out our policies in Latin America. I look forward to a continuing dialogue on how we canstrengthen U.S. relations with the nations of the Western Hemisphere.

Posted on Saturday, 12.26.09OPERATION PEDRO PANOperation Pedro Pan marks 49th anniversarySaturday marks the 49th anniversary of Operation Pedro Pan, the unique exodus of Cuban children to the United States that began on Dec. 26, 1960.BY LUISA YANEZlyanez@MiamiHerald.com

Forty-nine years ago Saturday, two frightened Cuban children landed at Miami International Airport on a commercial flight from Havana. They had traveled alone, gaining entry to the United States with coveted visa waivers.

Operation Pedro Pan had just begun.

The famed, clandestine effort to spirit children out of Fidel Castro's new Cuba as Communist indoctrination was spreading into the Catholic and private schools officially began on Dec. 26, 1960.

By the time it ended 18 months later, the unique exodus of children -- ages 5 to 17 -- had brought 14,048 unaccompanied Cuban minors to America, with the secret help of the U.S. government, which funded the effort and supplied the visa waivers, and the Catholic church, which promised to care for the children. The late Monsignor Bryan O. Walsh, a Miami priest, was considered the father of the effort.

As the children filtered into Miami and their numbers swelled, many went to live with relatives and family friends, but others were sent to Miami-Dade group homes and camps called Florida City, Kendall and Matecumbe. They were then relocated across the country to archdioceses in places like Nebraska, Washington and Indiana.

There, they went to live in orphanages, foster homes and schools until their parents could find a way out of Cuba. Sometimes the separation was brief; sometimes it lasted years.

PIONEERS

The first two children to arrive in Miami as part of Operation Pedro Pan were the Aquino kids -- Vivian, then 14, and Sixto, 12, according to official Operation Pedro Pan records.

They didn't know it at the time, but they were pioneers. Today, they recall the culture shock.

``To this day, I always remember Dec. 26,'' said Vivian Latour, who lives in Southwest Miami-Dade. ``How could I not? It's the day my entire life changed forever.''

Latour and her brother, who now lives in Washington, D.C., were greeted by a nun at MIA that day-after-Christmas long ago. They eventually went to live at St. Joseph's Villa at Northwest Seventh Street and 29th Avenue. They were later reunited with their parents.

RISKS AND CHOICES

As time has passed, Operation Pedro Pan has gained fame because of its young participants and the predicament they found themselves in once they were in the United States alone, and, for the horrible choice Cuban parents had to make to send them ahead following Castro's 1959 revolution.

``People ask all the time: `How could parents send their children ahead to a foreign country?' They wanted to save us from Communism, that's why,'' said Carmen Romanach, who was sent to Miami through the program when she was a teenager.

``I always thank my parents for getting me out of Cuba,'' said Eloisa Echazábal, who was 13 when she came to the United States with her younger sister.

Today, Romanach and Echazábal work to pass on the history of Operation Pedro Pan and preserve its official records and memorabilia. They say being a Pedro Pan -- most of whose members are now in their 50s and 60s -- is similar to being a war veteran: Only those who experienced it can identify with the angst.

Earlier this year, The Miami Herald unveiled a database listing the names of all the children who took part in the mission. The site has received over 1 million visitors in nine months and has allowed Pedro Pans from across the country to register and reconnect. To access the page go to MiamiHerald.com/pedro pan.

Next year, Operation Pedro Pan will celebrate its 50th anniversary. Parties, books and documentaries are planned.

Latour will take part in the momentous anniversary. But she says the real trailblazer was her late mother, Belen, who realized she had to get her children out of Cuba and helped launch the visa waiver hand-out by sending her children first. ``My mother is the real pioneer; she saw where things were going in Cuba and wanted to get us out. She's the one to be admired.''

Friday, December 25, 2009

HAVANA, Cuba — It's been more than a decade since Christmas was restored to national holiday status on this communist-run island, but don't confuse the kindly old man with the bushy white beard on government billboards for the jolly fellow in the flying sleigh.

That's Karl Marx up there, not Kris Kringle.

And yet, ever since the late Pope John Paul II made a historic trip to Cuba in 1998, Christmas has been gradually returning as a public holiday. There are no fake Santas at the state-run shopping centers or carolers in the streets, but the island seems to embrace La Navidad more and more openly each year. Government stores now stock plastic Christmas trees and gaudy ornaments, and Christmas lights can be seen twinkling in scattered Cuban homes and apartment buildings.

"We're going to have a big celebration this year," said Guillermo Rodriguez, standing outside a department store in Havana's Miramar neighborhood with his twin brother, Ruben. Rodriguez lives in Spain, but traveled back to the island to spend the holidays with his family.

"We love Christmas," his brother Ruben said.

For a country whose holiday calendar is otherwise dominated by the Castro government's political and historical commemorations, the celebration of Christmas is still an evolving process, wrapped in all the economic contradictions and religious accommodations of contemporary Cuba.

As relations between the government and the island's church leaders improve, the tradition has even earned a small space in Cuba's state-controlled media. For the second year in a row, government-run television has broadcast a tape of a Christmas celebration at Cuba's National Cathedral, including a message from Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the island's highest-ranking Catholic official.

Ortega spoke directly to Cuba's "divided families," and praised new Obama administration policies that have lifted travel and financial restrictions for Cubans living in the U.S. who have relatives on the island.

"Families are happy this year to be able to welcome relatives from the United States who wanted to visit them but could not," Ortega said. "For that we thank God."

Prior to the Cuban Revolution, the Christmas holiday was widely observed on the island, reflecting both Spanish traditions and American cultural influences. But Cuban authorities cancelled Christmas celebrations in 1969, saying they interfered with the country's sugar harvest. While many Cubans continued to celebrate the holiday in private, public displays were discouraged.

Much of Cuba's holiday enthusiasm was redirected to New Year's Eve, as that date became a kind of secular alternative to Dec. 25. Cuba celebrates Jan. 1 as the anniversary of the "Triumph of the Revolution" — the day in 1959 that Fidel Castro took power — so with Christmas diminished, many Cubans adopted New Year's Eve as their end-of-year occasion, gathering with family to exchange gifts and share a traditional feast of roast pork, apple cider and Spanish candy bars called turrones, among other delights.

The Christmas spirit began creeping back in 1990, when Cuba removed references to atheism from its constitution, and allowed Christians and other religious believers to join the Communist Party. After Pope John Paul II visited in 1998 and met with Fidel Castro, Dec. 25 was restored as an official national holiday.

These days, one of Cuba's most moving Christmas spectacles occurs at Havana Joe Marti International Airport, where charter flights from Miami and elsewhere arrive with teary-eyed Cubans carrying huge bundles of gifts. Entire families stand outside the terminal to greet their loved ones, as brothers and daughters and grandparents rush to embrace relatives after years of separation, in some cases.

But for Cubans who don't have relatives coming from abroad to help them financially, or who depend on woefully inadequate government salaries, the holidays can also be a time of pain and bitterness.

"I wanted to buy my daughter a doll, but they cost $20 here," said Alejandro Esposito, a mechanic, outside a toy store in Havana's Miramar district. "That's more than I make in an entire month."

Nearby, Eglis Figueredo emerged from a department store with a miniature plastic Christmas tree, pre-decorated in silvery ornaments and plastic pine cones. Figueredo said her daughter and granddaughter were living in Peru now, and most of her extended family lived in eastern Cuba, too far to travel for the holiday. She had her church to go to on the 25th, but she said she would probably spend Christmas Eve alone.

"It's a tough day for me," she said. "I'll be thinking about my daughter and my granddaughter. I hope they can come visit me soon."